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Heel bone densitometry: device specific thresholds for the assessment of osteoporosis

¹ Regional Medical Physics Department and, ² Department of Rheumatology, University Hospital of North Durham, North Road, Durham DH1 5TW, ³ Durham and Chester-le-Street Primary Care Trust, John Snow House, Durham University Science Park, County Durham DH1 3YG, UK

View larger version (11K): [in a new window]   Figure 1. Scatter plot of heel T-scores for the initial group of patients; 90% of the 57 not osteoporotic patients lie above the lower threshold of –2.2, whilst 90% of the 19 patients who are osteoporotic lie below the higher threshold of 0.1. The limited data points in the osteoporotic group do not allow an accurate cut off value to be selected.

View larger version (13K): [in a new window]   Figure 2. Scatter plot of all heel T-scores for patients in the two diagnostic categories; 90% of patients who have a T-score above the lower threshold of –2.2 do not have osteoporosis, whilst 90% of patients who have a T-score below the upper T-score threshold of –1.2 are osteoporotic. Patients with heel T-score between the two threshold values should be referred for axial densitometry.